To clarify matters somewhat, I would like to lay out the details which the Lord Commander has seemingly failed to mention to reporters:

The Song Dominion recently carried out two CAC hacking incidents in Litharge. Impera Van T'rath, wishing to respond to this attack, went on a counter-raid to hack Song's CAC. A fairly standard exchange, the likes of which any faction has doubtlessly experienced.

At the time, the Ascendancy had declined to declare our lead suspect (Picram T'rvati, the 'unnamed' member of the T'rvati Dynasty from the TSZ coverage) an enemy on the assumption that Van's counter-raid would likely scare the young choirtree straight. The Dominion issued Van an enemy status and a fine for his raid. Again, fairly standard behavior - Song has always been the more belligerent faction, after all.

Matters only became complicated when Van went to pay his fine. The marks were deposited, and then Lord Commander Vega pointed out that she had only said that Van "might" be unenemied if he paid the fine - and sure enough, even though the money was in the Dominion accounts, Van wasn't unenemied, despite having paid his fine. Vega has done this sort of thing before, so I made the decision to return the favour by declaring

I made the decision to declare Picram an enemy, to issue a standard fine for the value of the stolen report slivers as per the Celestine Penal Code, and to inform Picram that the successful resolution of its enemy status contingent upon the resolution of Van's enemy status. Precisely the same treatment as our combatant got from Song, but with the added courtesy of specifying in advance that paying up was definitely not going to be sufficient to get unenemied. Picram initially denied the charges, but after being confronted with the evidence admitted to the hacks and switched trakcs to haggling for a discount on the fine. It was eventually agreed that if Picram could prevail upon the Lord Commander to resolve this issue within the year, I'd cover the cost of the missing report slivers myself out of my own pocket.

(Those of you who've read my prior public statements on Celestine jurisprudence will doubtlessly see the logic here, but I shall endeavour to spell it out more clearly for everyone else: paying a fine isn't about some corporate raider buying their way out of punishment in the Ascendancy, it's about restitution. About making your victims whole. Under normal circumstances, all a CAC theft would warrant would be a fine for the costs of the slivers and maybe a bounty hunter or two if the raiding was particularly annoying. But due to the actions of Picram's dynasty head, putting things right now includes either the resolution of Van's enemy status or an apology for the shameless scam the Lord Commander as perpetrated. In the end, it isn't about the Ascendancy wanting a paltry amount of money - it's about fairness.)

As you might have already guessed from the TSZ report on the subject, the Lord Commander seems to be completely unable to take what she's willing to dish out, particularly when it involves one of her own Dynasty members paying the price for her own bad behavior. Her statements in the aftermath of this attack show that she thinks that mercy is weakness and that honesty is for suckers. This leaves the Ascendancy to stand, as ever, for the revolutionary ideals of truth, fairness and magnanimity.

I'm sure the Sector will see in due time which of the two is the stronger.

Grek, the Guardian Prime